If gender is a social construct, how can we explain gender identity?

[Memento]

I have been researching some stuff about trans people for a project, but I found myself really questioning everything when I got into this paradox.

I dont have any doubts that people can have different identities than the one that matches their assined sex, but how is that possible if gender is a social construct? Basically: if gender identity is about being born in another body, therefore not fitting in the gender assigned for your body according to your genitalia, how can we say gender is a social construct?

At the same time, it is kind of obvious gender is a social construct, but my point is that assuming one or another (gender identity and gender as a social construct) would essencially invalidate the other.

Basically, if gender identity is biological, how can we call gender a social construct? In the same way, how can it be a social construct if somebody is born in dissonance with his/her assigned gender.

I may be missing something so I would love if someone better known in these matters can help me on this, or even better our trans folks in the site.

 

[Boddy]

Just because it's a social construct doesn't mean it's not real.

 

[ckareset]

This will be a fun thread.

The way I see it is while gender is a social construct, your identity can be based around that construct if you want it to be, but it doesnt have to be. There are those that reject the normal social construct and that is their identity. It's just far easier to talk about people in defined terms

 

[neon/drifter]

I'm genderfluid and it is a question with many answers to be honest. I feel elated to be considered a female, I enjoy the idea of being feminine. But if my idea of femininity is completely framed by culture, doesn't it really just mean I think women are powerful and cool and I aspire to that? Doesn't it really mean I'm a guy that thinks nail polish looks nice on me?

It's complicated! Humans are complicated, but damn it we can just be lovely either way.

 

[Alucrid]

because your gender identity is informed by gender as a social construct?

 

[Moff]

gender is not a social construct, gender roles are

 

[kadotsu]

Have you ever successfully unlearned your native language? It's simmilar with gender identity.

 

[Deleted member 9135]

I think you're equating the relationship you have with yourself with the relationship others have with you. Its perception through different eyes. Anything that pertains to what outside people view is social construct.

Great question and am curious to see the responses from our Trans brothers and sisters

 

[just a slowpoke]

social constructs are human-created frameworks for understanding and codifying aspects of reality that in turn influence how people interact with the world

they exist in the sense that their impact is visible and it could even be said their physical location is wherever and however the brain stores categorical schema

 

[Wiped]

I had a really interesting discussion on this the other day with a friend. We were talking about how some children want surgery to change gender.

He made the point that just because you want to play with dolls and wear pink doesn't or shouldn't make you a girl, and playing football or wearing blue shouldn't make you a boy, and that if anything, performing surgery on people in order to make them feel like they fit preconceived stereotypes of what a boy or girl should be like is just as old fashioned and backwards. If anything we should say it doesn't matter what your body looks like or what you wear, being a boy or girl doesn't mean you have to act like this or that to fit in, so it shouldn't mean you have to change your body either.

 

[SaintBowWow]

I think it's basically that gender is the arbitrary construct of what you look like, are interested in, attracted to, and your emotional state that is assigned to people based on their sex. Trans people don't agree with the identity society expects them to have based on their genitals and instead identitify as the opposite gender identity.

 

[Memento]

because your gender identity is informed by gender as a social construct?

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But then, a kid cant be trans then? How can he/she knows what is gender and which one is his/her gender identity

 

[Juj]

I'd love an explanation for this also - this is an genuine request because i find there to be an theoretical paradox here.

 

[Mulciber]

For starters, being transgender is not as simplistic as "being born in the wrong body." I know it gets simplified to that statement a lot, but that's not how it works.

Secondly, social constructs are real. If we didn't push them so hard as a society, then being pre-transition arguably wouldn't be as difficult. Being forced into living a gender role that you don't feel like matches your gender is part of the issue. Gender roles are effectively saying, "You were born with these genitals, and so now you must do X and look like Y."

Consider this: biologically speaking, there's absolutely no such thing as "the white race;" it's a social construct. And yet white privilege sure as hell has real-world effects in society, and has real-word effects on people as individuals.

 

[Deleted member 9135]

But then, a kid cant be trans then?

Click to shrink...

According to who? the kid or you? There's a difference in of itself.

How can he/she knows what is gender and which one is his/her gender identity

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Because anytime a trans girl sees her penis, she absolute hates the sight of it. and when her dad takes her out to go hunting, she would rather be at home doing "girl" things

 

[Deleted member 19066]

Because no one actually knows how it works.

For starters, being transgender is not as simplistic as "being born in the wrong body." I know it gets simplified to that statement a lot, but that's not how it works.

Secondly, social constructs are real. If we didn't push them so hard as a society, then being pre-transition arguably wouldn't be as difficult. Being forced into living a gender role that you don't feel like matches your gender is part of the issue. Gender roles are effectively saying, "You were born with these genitals, and so now you must do X and look like Y."

Consider this: biologically speaking, there's absolutely no such thing as "the white race;" it's a social construct. And yet white privilege sure as hell has real-world effects in society, and has real-word effects on people as individuals.

Click to shrink...

On the other hand, gender is completely different from race, and power, privilege, and class have no bearing on gender dysphoria or euphoria whereas it's the entire purpose of race as a construct. I try to avoid bringing up race at all, since it's extremely difficult to explain why transgender is a thing but trans racial isn't, despite both slender and race being social constructs.

 

[Platy]

Gender is real. How we divide it is a social construct. See tribes with 3 or more genders... They just divide it different

Think about numbers. Base 10 is a social construct

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UpSoosy9ws

I suggest you watch this video. But to sum up the main point as said earlier in this thread just because something is a social construct does not mean it does not exist. Race may be a social construct but we can still tangibly recognize that people are being treated in certain ways based around this idea and others identifying based around the idea.

 

[SaintBowWow]

I had a really interesting discussion on this the other day with a friend. We were talking about how some children want surgery to change gender.

He made the point that just because you want to play with dolls and wear pink doesn't or shouldn't make you a girl, and playing football or wearing blue shouldn't make you a boy, and that if anything, performing surgery on people in order to make them feel like they fit preconceived stereotypes of what a boy or girl should be like is just as old fashioned and backwards. If anything we should say it doesn't matter what your body looks like or what you wear, being a boy or girl doesn't mean you have to act like this or that to fit in, so it shouldn't mean you have to change your body either.

Click to shrink...

But to really get to that then everyone else needs to be on board and not prescribe male/female labels based on someone's perceived sex. As it stands people prescribe certain appearances, actions, and personalities to certain body types (this is called gender). Once people stop doing this and everyone is free to do anything they want without having an identity assumed, as you describe, then asking if someone is a man or woman is really only asking if they have a penis or vagina which is super rude to do. Since we're not there yet people feel out of place for having an identity that does not match the identity defined for them by society so they want to change their body and that fine.

 

[Platy]

But then, a kid cant be trans then? How can he/she knows what is gender and which one is his/her gender identity

Click to shrink...

If a kid can't be trans than a kid can't be cis.
Spoilers: they can be

Gender roles are literally one of the first things we teach our kids

 

[LProtagonist]

It's not a chicken or the egg kind of thing. There are some physical attributes that come along with sex that have influenced how we think about gender, just as society has influenced how we think about gender as well. It's really complex and it's akin to a feedback loop that's continued to reinforce itself to create very rigid social roles concerning gender that we are just now starting to unravel.

 

[Mulciber]

Because no one actually knows how it works.

On the other hand, gender is completely different from race, and power, privilege, and class have no bearing on gender dysphoria or euphoria whereas it's the entire purpose of race as a construct. I try to avoid bringing up race at all, since it's extremely difficult to explain why transgender is a thing but trans racial isn't, despite both slender and race being social constructs.

Click to shrink...

You're absolutely right, and normally I would never bring up race as a comparison to gender dysphoria to simply to talk about trans issues, gender in general, etc. The whole trans-racial thing is a good reason example of why I wouldn't.

In this specific example, I was trying to use "the white race" to illustrate the point that a social construct isn't just, say, an idea. They exist in the real world through a variety of effects.

 

[Yesterday]

According to who? the kid or you? There's a difference in of itself.




Because anytime a trans girl sees her penis, she absolute hates the sight of it. and when her dad takes her out to go hunting, she would rather be at home doing "girl" things

Click to shrink...

Why is hunting a guy thing?

 

[Raccoon]

there's a fantastic contrapoints on this

 

[Deleted member 56909]

I'm trans you just kinda know I think part the thing here is that there are significant differences in the brain of trans people than the ones of their assigned birth. Sure it may be social roles and the wedge you're assigned into but the maternal and natural human instincts of the other sex is more so brain development. So way I categorize it is general societal concepts about gender and biological development. So, in essence, its both at least my interpretation of human psychology.
Edit: gender research is still relatively new as far as psych standards go so we may all be proven wrong with new ongoing research. Last thing I read was that trans brains resemble the gender they identify as morso than the gender they were born as.

 

[Kirblar]

Gender Identity = baseline of who you are inside

Gender Construct = How society interprets gender identity, like a prism or filter light is going through

Blue = Boys, Pink = Girls is actually backwards from what it was 150 years ago. That's a social construct.

 

[Deleted member 15428]

This will be a fun thread.

Click to shrink...

Why?

 

[Deleted member 18360]

The intersubjective is actually another category of the objective.

 

[Biggersmaller]

Gender is a cultural reaction to biology. Regardless of your genes, dressing as a woman and referring to yourself as a female is simply a response societal expectations. Wearing a dress and going to a women's bathroom is not physiology it's sociology. It's also "real". That person is 100% a female regardless of their chromosomes.

 

[I_D]

That's not a paradox at all. It's the exact reason there's a disassociation in the first place.


Historically, we have attempted to label people. Those labels are based on presumed parameters, which is where the 'construct' part comes in.

But now we know that those parameters don't fit every single person, so the construct is falling apart. And so even though we've taken a good step forward, there's still a way to go. 'Gender identity' is also a social construct, because it still attempts to put a label on people, albeit the labels are a bit more fluid.

In short, any time you try to define a person based on a few catchy buzzwords, you're bound to be wrong. Hence, the disassociation between the 'identity' for a person, and how that person actually feels.

If the word "gender" simply didn't exist, there wouldn't be any disassociation. There would still be dysphoria based on genitals, of course, but at least that would be tied to purely biological needs, rather than adding social expectations on top of it.

 

[Thordinson]

But then, a kid cant be trans then? How can he/she knows what is gender and which one is his/her gender identity

Click to shrink...

Of course they can. Children are taught gender roles early in their life.

This argument has always been odd to me and I don't mean in the way you phrase it. I've seen this made many times. It's as if people have Schrodinger's Child. They can be aware of right and wrong so people, who support corporal punishment, can hit them but they suddenly can't be intelligent enough to understand gender roles. Children understand much more than we give them credit for.

 

[Pandaman]

Ideally we'd all be gender abolitionists, but unfortunately 95% of the abolitionist movement seems to just want to shit on trans people.

 

[Madison]

Gender Identity is how you identify as. And where that identification comes from is definitely a controversial issue, even within the trans community. However, it is most likely and most supported to be a biological element.

The construct of "gender" (gender roles and gender expression) comes entirely from sociocultural elements.

Its important to not confuse gender identity (a biological aspect of all humans) with gender roles/expression (which both vary depending of the culture)

Now you might say "but gender identity as an idea is a manifestation of the gender construct" and well, kinda but its more complex than that.

We know that theres something different, we know that we arent cis. In that sense, gender theory and the gender construct offer us ways to explain who we are. This does not mean that it isnt biological, but we use science to be able to categorize us in a more efficent way.

Kids can be trans because a kid from a very young age can feel that their assigned gender at birth does not fit with how they identify as, and (preferably) with the help of a specialized person you can determine that yes, that kid is gender non conforming.

Hopefully any of that made sense.

 

[metalslimer]

Why?

Click to shrink...

Probably because its inevitably going to end up with a bunch of unchecked transphobia like many threads on here and the old place do/did

 

[platocplx]

Gender isnt a binary thing. You have two end ca[ps where someone could be wholly Female and someone Wholly Male, But you could even have men born with a vagina, or women born with a penis, or even have people who are intersex where their genitals are overdeveloped or under developed in the Male or Female bucket someone may put them in.
pretty much gender cannot be assigned by someones genitals alone without understanding all the other pieces of the person and allow them to be the ones to assign what they want their gender to be.

This is just what ive come to understand it as.

 

[Earthstrike]

I had a really interesting discussion on this the other day with a friend. We were talking about how some children want surgery to change gender.

He made the point that just because you want to play with dolls and wear pink doesn't or shouldn't make you a girl, and playing football or wearing blue shouldn't make you a boy, and that if anything, performing surgery on people in order to make them feel like they fit preconceived stereotypes of what a boy or girl should be like is just as old fashioned and backwards. If anything we should say it doesn't matter what your body looks like or what you wear, being a boy or girl doesn't mean you have to act like this or that to fit in, so it shouldn't mean you have to change your body either.

Click to shrink...

The argument isn't playing with dolls or wearing pink makes you a girl. The need for transition has to do with the existence of gender dysphoria. It is a negative, innate psychological experience for your mind's conception of your body to not align with you physical body.

 

[Deleted member 19066]

If a kid can't be trans than a kid can't be cis.
Spoilers: they can be

Click to shrink...

...What if they don't have to be either? In a society that recognizes a broad range of fluid genders, would the existence and treatment of gender dysphoria necessitate the label of "cis" or "trans"?

 

[Deleted member 2761]

I'm far from an expert, but I think Contrapoints' most recent video (skip to 23:45 if you have no time) sort of goes through the weaknesses of arguments of gender as being strictly psychological, strictly biological, or a performative social construct. Watch the whole thing if you can, but at least my takeaway is that the question itself as to what gender identity is...isn't actually that important.

 

[CDX]

My understanding is your gender identity is NOT a social construct. However your gender expression IS, and how people react to your expression IS, and the roles society tends to give ARE. People can tend to conflate the two different concepts "gender identity" and "gender expression" as just "gender". Not to mention how people tend conflate gender with biological sex.

The example I can think of, is of girls that are tomboys. The vast majority identify as female, but don't always desire to express their gender in the stereotypical ways.

 

[anthro]

Because no one actually knows how it works.

On the other hand, gender is completely different from race, and power, privilege, and class have no bearing on gender dysphoria or euphoria whereas it's the entire purpose of race as a construct. I try to avoid bringing up race at all, since it's extremely difficult to explain why transgender is a thing but trans racial isn't, despite both slender and race being social constructs.

Click to shrink...

"trans racial" could be considered a thing in practice, in the sense that people adopt cultural racial signifiers and will even change their skin tones and use cosmetic procedures to look more like another race (derogative terms to shame behaving or looking like another race like "wigger" come to mind). However, clearly the experience that one is actually another race than what others perceive them as isn't as common or apparently as important to anyone's identity as gender identity is for trans people, so that I've never seen somebody who is clearly of some western European descent saying they're black. Also, attempts to adopt the physical characteristics or cultural characteristics associated with another race are usually made for the purpose of social advancement. Michael Jackson is at least an example of this on the perceptions side, since it seems commonly believed that he bleached his skin and got plastic surgery because he didn't want to be black.

But this isn't to equate the two, rather to point out that as obvious as it is that race is a sociological relationship it is also easy to point out instances of behavior and perceptions of other people as being "transracial". To go back to Michael Jackson, would anyone who didn't know he was black think that he was black without being shown a picture of him in the past? I've also heard several people question whether or not Ariana Grande is black, for instance. And in the same sense the interstices of physical sex characteristics and gender norms can result in people who are "transgender", who do not conform to the common understanding of what it means to be a man or woman, although they may either themselves actively identify as one or the other or may be percieved as one or the other. But this doesn't necessarily mean that characteristics associated with either gender or race are located somewhere in the brain such that you can observe a given brain and identify what race or gender it belongs to. From what I understand, Male and female brains are almost indistinguishable from each other. It is very likely that a neuroscientist observing the brain of any given man, outside of obvious overall size differences due to differences in average body mass, would be unable to distinguish it from a woman's brain.

 

[Kinggroin]

The identity is real. You identity as whatever you feel you are. What that is, the word for it, that's society's definitions.

 

[808s & Villainy]

I don't think they're at odds. They're both technically social constructs. "Gender identity" is a socially constructed catch all term to explain a number of biological features, predispositions, tendencies, etc that we consider to be part of your "gender". So while there are biological reasons behind it, what we choose to consider as being part of a "gender" is societal.

It's the same with race being a social construct. There are biological/genetic features that cause people to exhibit different phenotypes or have various genetic predispositions, but what is chosen to be grouped together as falling under a given "race" is societal

 

[Deleted member 25606]

Probably because its inevitably going to end up with a bunch of unchecked transphobia like many threads on here and the old place do/did

Click to shrink...

It's already happening, there's at least one post already claiming that children wanting surgery bullshit. I have come to the conclusion this forum is not the place to have this discussion. Meant to or not a thread like this does not come across as an actual attempt to understand and more of a defend my existence and that's the last thing I want to do on a board I come to get away from my problems.

 

[Canucked]

It's already happening, there's at least one post already claiming that children wanting surgery bullshit. I have come to the conclusion this forum is not the place to have this discussion. Meant to or not a thread like this does not come across as an actual attempt and more of a defend my existence and that's the last thing I want to do on a board I come to get away from my problems.

Click to shrink...

I think the thread as a whole is handling it pretty well. People are asking questions and learning. Don't let one bad comment spoil it.

 

[Platy]

...What if they don't have to be either? In a society that recognizes a broad range of fluid genders, would the existence and treatment of gender dysphoria necessitate the label of "cis" or "trans"?

Click to shrink...

I was talking about conservatives that say that children can't be trans as a "they are cis you will not give hormones to a kid"

Cis and Trans would not be needed in such a utopian society. Like how the concept of money would not be needed in a society that does not requires it.

My understanding is your gender identity is NOT a social construct. However your gender expression IS, and how people react to your expression IS, and the roles society tends to give ARE. People can tend to conflate the two different concepts "gender identity" and "gender expression" as just "gender". Not to mention how people tend conflate gender with biological sex.

The example I can think of, is of girls that are tomboys. The vast majority identify as female, but don't always desire to express their gender in the stereotypical ways.

Click to shrink...

Gender identity is a social construct. Think that brain sex is a range from 0 to 100. The social construct part is that we divide it in "bigger than 50" and "less than 50". Because one can divide it in "<30", "30<x<60" and "60>" for example. Or we can divide in 10 equal parts. or we can divide in whatever,

 

[Deleted member 25606]

I think the thread as a whole is handling it pretty well. People are asking questions and learning. Don't let one bad comment spoil it.

Click to shrink...

I'm trying not to, and not trying to bash on Memento just backing up why that poster in the original comment of the quote chain said threads like these are a bad idea and why I typically agree.

 

[Sunster]

...What if they don't have to be either? In a society that recognizes a broad range of fluid genders, would the existence and treatment of gender dysphoria necessitate the label of "cis" or "trans"?

Click to shrink...

we don't live in that society yet.

 

[crienne]

we don't live in that society yet.

Click to shrink...

And I'd wager that we (as in "western" society) will never get there.

So much of what we know is built around two genders. The amount of people that acknowledge a third gender—let alone the existence of more genders—is likely microscopic when compared against the general population.

I'm nonbinary/genderqueer, but because I'm bald, have a beard, and otherwise appear to be male I'm afraid to show anything that may break the gender construct that's all around me.

 

[Sunster]

And I'd wager that we (as in "western" society) will never get there.

So much of what we know is built around two genders. The amount of people that acknowledge a third gender—let alone the existence of more genders—is likely microscopic when compared against the general population.

I'm nonbinary/genderqueer, but because I'm bald, have a beard, and otherwise appear to be male I'm afraid to show anything that may break the gender construct that's all around me.

Click to shrink...

maybe not in our lifetimes. but i can see us getting to a place where labels are seen as archaic.

 

[Canucked]

And I'd wager that we (as in "western" society) will never get there.

So much of what we know is built around two genders. The amount of people that acknowledge a third gender—let alone the existence of more genders—is likely microscopic when compared against the general population.

I'm nonbinary/genderqueer, but because I'm bald, have a beard, and otherwise appear to be male I'm afraid to show anything that may break the gender construct that's all around me.

Click to shrink...

Religion is the biggest barrier. Not to say there aren't hundreds of other things preventing people from changing perception.